the heat.

Warmian people suffer from heat like any other. The only difference is, when the heat is too much, we're not dying in bathtubes, we're going swimming. Quite frankly, most of the time I'm even too lazy to leave home, frappes are somehow enough to cool me down, but from time to time, even I drop everything and go to the beach with some friends. I feel like they are not exactly cool with me taking pictures all of the time. As I'm writing this, they are arguing over who looks uglier in a facebook conference window. And they only saw a sneak peek of what's coming. 

No picture will ever truly capture the beauty of a moment, I'm slowly learning that fact. I try and try though. And sometimes it feels as if I "almost" got it right. Taking pictures with such a vintage looking and incredibly loud camera often makes me stand out. Let me just tell you, there is nothing I hate more than drawing attention to myself when it's absolutely not needed. When my friends want to take my Zenit and take some shots of me, my reply is always the same -- this is not how it works. I am wielding the lens. I think I'm content I was born in a beautiful place like this. Sometimes I just wish my city wasn't such a rathole, but apparently that's the price one must pay to experience all the other pros :) I would love to be able to spend my time by the lake in some more creative ways. Kitesurfing, perhaps?

Kodak Gold let me down once again, completely underexposing a bunch of photos I wanted to show you guys, today. (btw it's Monday again!) Fortunately it wasn't anything captured on the spur of the moment and I managed to recreate everything using a different film and a different camera today. The ready post is waiting in my drafts as I'll be getting those developed pretty soon. I actually finished my first Agfa Vista Plus roll, which makes me truly excited because all of you seemed to enjoy taking pictures with that one. I've been shooting with my new Praktica the past few days and although I am still shooting with MC Zenitar lens, I have a good feeling about this one. The working light meter really changes the experience! Although now it takes me about two times what I used to need to actually take a picture, I hope that this means the end of the overexposed / underexposed days of my lomo adventure.

I have also another post coming up, this one will be about introversion (as it's a crucial part of my personality and some people still don't really get it) and  my opinion on the "wholeness" concept. Of course all of these will be accompanied by pictures. I am also happy to announce that after a long discussion, my uni friends and I decided to spend a few days in Prague this September. If you're having any suggestions of places we should see, or things I should photograph in Prague, drop me a comment or an email. (architecture, food, partying, cultural stuff, gardens and parks, etc. etc.) Speak soon! x

 this is what I'm forced to work with. they're always on their phones no matter where we are. RUDE!

Little things are important, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.

Surround yourself with people who are intellectually stimulating. Vada Sultenfuss of My Girl, rings a bell? Anna Chlumsky? Jack Crawford's protege in Hannibal? The arm girl? Nothing? Okay, I'm done trying. To the point now. Today, I'm going to talk about something I find particularly intellectually stimulating. What is going on with me and Mondays anyway? The posts have been that irregularly regular because of the fact that developing film takes time, getting a full film used does too. I've moved onto the 24 frames film, so maybe that will speed things up a little bit.

It's Friday as I'm starting to write this post, but I already know it's not going to be up until Monday when I get my current roll of film developed. Oh schedules. I'm being really weird recently and I am deeply, deeply sorry about that, guys. I know it's the time I put my shit together. My excuse is, I, myself, know best when I need a couple of days off alone and if I decide to be a freak who spends her days under a blanket, with a book and/or coffee in her hand or Orange is the New Black (9 episodes in and I'm already starting to talk like a stereotypical black person on that show does) playing on her laptop, then be it. And origami, lots of origami! I noticed paper cranes while stalking Erin's blog and since I really dig them as a room decoration [and I'm already in the phase of decorating my new room in my mind] (switching rooms again) - I decided to give it a try before I order some fancy origami paper off ebay. If you're a beginner like me or, oh, you just suck at anything manual - see for youself - how to fold a paper crane in 25 steps, easy peasy! I'm going through some serious withdrawal, but I finally have time to do things I love the most. Eating, sleep and reading Murakami.

He's a contemporary Japanese writer, you might or might not have heard about. Even my dad has read a book of his, or two, but on the other hand, my best friend truly despises him. I don't judge. I understand that some people might find the complexity of Murakami slightly hard to approach. For me, stuff he writes is extremely inspiring. So far, I've read 4 books of his and I am currently reading the fifth one, 1Q84, which I received as a birthday present. Someone once told me that you should not trust people who don't read books. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of a bookworm. Not as big as my flatmate anyway :) Aren't people who don't read much, or basically never read much, slightly less sensitive about the world? There are certainly various ways of expressing yourself or taking the world in - sensitivity is definitely not defined by the number of pages one's read, but I can't help feeling that books and lives we live with the characters, that carry inside of us later on, help us shape what kind of people we are, almost as significantly as our own actions. If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. One of my favourite Murakami quotes. Norwegian Wood - named by the name of one of the Beatles' songs. So I started a year ago, with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and let me just tell you, it brough so much joy, acceptance and understanding into my life. Also, I finally found a perfect tune for cooking pasta, because apparently, that's what The Thieving Magpie is.

I never buy books, because I can never find anything for myself in a bookstore. They are so poorly stocked! Only one shelf of books in foreign languages​​? Really? For some time, most of the books that I managed to buy was in English. I always thought it would help me to develop the language, because I feel that my progress in that field stopped a long time ago, but now slowly cease to do so, going back to my native Polish, mainly because the importance of the plots I deal with is hard to grasp not knowing half the words. I hate PDFs though! I own an iPad mini and sometimes it's definitely more comfortable to just "wave" my finger like a wand, turning pages, but guess what, there is completely no magic in that. I love books in their original form, with pages so sharp that they're cutting fingers and the wonderful, irreplaceable smell!

(favourite reading spot in my garden)

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can't buy. I bought a new Helios lens and then I purchased a Praktica MTL3 body. I cannot wait for those to arrive and I hope my new babies will get along together.

Just a quick selection of my favourite Haruki Murakami quotes;

▲ “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
▲ “If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.” 1Q84
▲ “As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.” Dance Dance Dance
▲ “Find me now. Before someone else does.” 1Q84

▲ “And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.” Sputnik Sweetheart
▲ “Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” Kafka on the Shore
▲ “Have you ever had that feeling—that you’d like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
▲ “A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.” 1Q84

▲ “The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
▲ “Maybe she thought the garbage and rocks in your head were interesting. But finally, garbage is garbage and rocks are rocks.” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
▲ “Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.” South of the Border, West of the Sun


▲ “Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.” Kafka on the Shore

20.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me -- Here I am, oldest I've ever been and the youngest I will ever be. What a deep thought, lol. At the age of 20, I'm studying dentistry, I've had a dozen of blogs, a kind of successful tumblr blog with few thousands of followers, but I am still a hell of a mess maker! Tumblr taught me that it's okay to be awkward, it's alright to spend your Saturday nights in, watching silly movies of your preference (horrors in my case, always horrors) and it's more than acceptable if the list of your previous boyfriends is short or maybe even non-existent. I've developed 11 films -- but never yet got 36 out of 36 pictures on them. If I were to form one simple costant in my life, it would the fact that pictures of me in the mirror or captures of coffee I make myself, spending way to much time on decoration of what I'm about to drink, NEVER turn out alright on film. Duh. Sadly, I gave up on my vidding career and possible Hollywood fame. I have done some very stupid things, trusted people I shouldn't have, fucked up my relationship with parents, ruined a few friendships as well. It puts me almost at the start of year two, at uni, over 200 kms away from my hometown. During those 20 years I got addicted to caffeine and bad reality shows (mostly Hardcore Pawn and some stupid Polish ones, we all know what I'm talking about). I proved a lot to myself over that time. Overcome some fears along the way. I don't intend to give my character any particular depth. I am a regular nerd, with no social life, several passions and unstoppable will to pursue dreams and make changes. 

Most of the time, I have been lost. Wandering around, stumbling upon things that might have or mightn't have blossomed into something more. I found myself in Japanese literature, especially in Murakami's magical realism. Over the years, I have been a little detective with Christie, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston with Plath, May Kasahara of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle & Lisa Rowe, an interrupted sociopath. I have tried writing myself, one shot fics I'd call them, just for kicks of cheering me up if I'm ever down and in need of taking my mind off things. I was a happy child, naively thinking I had a perfect family like the ones you'd see in Sunday movies on telly. I never made any strong relationships with people. Thoughts of primary school bring on a vague feeling of being rejected by others, misunderstood, vague enough to be shaken after a moment, when I remember all the cool things I was a part of back then. I'm still pretty sure I was not the widely liked or appreciated kid. Junior high was the initial period of time when I consciously reached out to someone and got my heart broken for the very first time. That sort of went on and off for next 10 years. In high school I told myself that it's no use in having any regrets at all, especially if I don't do anything wrong -- I was always a sensible person and although some of my actions were plain stupid (I don't regret them, but I can fully agree that I must have been a dumbass back then), but to be quite honest, some will make a hell of a story in the future.

I've met some incredible people during those 20 years. It's hard for me to even tell how long I've known Marret, a friend of mine for the Netherlands with whom I first started talking....via youtube. Remember how I mentioned my vidding career earlier in that post? Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty certain she's been in my life the longest (out of the people I can call my friends right now) -- when we meet one day, I swear it will be hard for me to even stop taking pictures of her pretty face! Most of the time, friendships like ours, the over distance ones, don't actually last long. Maybe, in my case it was not actually that hard, but in fact easier. You can ask some of my regular real life best friends (who you will be hearing about A LOT in the future, so I'm not going to dwell on that now, love you babes!), being friends with me is kind of tough. I'm tough. Anything that involves any feelings and me is tough. So I often run away. And if I do, then for awhile there is no turning back for me. I often ask myself why some people actually bother to reach out to me after I fail at reaching out to them, again and again. "My ears hear what others cannot hear. Small faraway things people cannot normally see are visible to me. These senses are the fruit of a lifetime of longing, longing to be rescued, to be completed. Just as the skirt needs the wind to billow, I'm not formed by things that are of myself alone. I wear my father's belt tied around my mother's blouse, and shoes which are from my uncle. This is me. Just as a flower does not choose its color, we are not responsible for what we have come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free, and to become adult is to become free."

I've heard I was different. Too often do I wonder, wouldn't it be easier if people knew how to be completely honest with each other? I'm done with being treated like someone whose reaction you should fear. Being human, knowing how to forgive and forget, I am genuinely sad when someone takes it for granted. Sometimes I feel like I have lost to much due to the fact that people are so diffucult to figure out. My disguise is usually so thin you could see right through it, at least I think so, never had I thought that it's rather hard for anyone to get inside my head. One thing that you should know about me is that I hate deception, I hate foolishness, but I love sushi. Oh well, what an awkward way to finish. 

If you're still reading then well, congratulations, you've made it till the end! Just to sum up everything (pretty much everything I guess) I'd say only that I'd rather take pictures than pose for them. I'd rather drink Martini bianco than rosato -- and I'd rather love people than hate them. Keep that in mind, please. May you have amazing vacay! Namasté!

time is hard to kill since I met you.

This is one of those days...when all the people I meet make me pissed off. Those who make the parking lot out of the pavement I'm walking on, or those who can not even scan the negative, despite working in a camera store. And finally, when a black cat crosses my path, there is nothing else to do but to laugh. I love black cats. A black cat reminds me of some cool moments in my life. The one which is notoriously fed by my neighbours is not even properly black though. No bad luck for me this time, I guess. 

Coming back to a typical lomo topic, actually, I'm not very happy with Lomography 800 iso film. The pictures are grainy and it's not like it takes less light to get good results... I would like to try something new, I have an eye on Kodak Ektar and I think next time I'll give it a try. What are your favourite films? I think you already know what kind of photography I'm into. Would be lovely if you wanted to share your favourites with me under that post! I began a search for a new lens for my beloved Zenit. The one I have now is MC Zenitar-M2s 2/50, which I bought with the camera. I started a new topic at Flickr's Russian Cameras group, which helped me the last time (THANK YOU GUYS!) so I'm just going to wait till someone more experienced replies. 

I took A to my favourite place ever - a really peaceful spot close to where I live - where you can basically reach the middle of the lake with the water level still below your waist. It's perfect for photoshooting, admiring and silly jumps!

My twisted logic tells me that spending yesterday evening in contemplation of the last year, was a very very bad idea. These thoughts come and go more often lately, and are not about just last year, but my whole life. Soon I will turn twenty, and if I ever get lucky, then 25% of my life will be over next Monday. Last 7 priceless days as a teenager. Twenty years of being L’esprit de l’escalier gone just like that?